


Spark and Tremor

by saturninesunshine



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, and whatever i make up basically, hellfire au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 05:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4774859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturninesunshine/pseuds/saturninesunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The past five years of Agent Quake's life has been a complete lie. But the secret she's keeping from SHIELD and her father figure is even worse. After all this time, Skye can't tell who she's become anymore.</p>
<p>“I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with you,” Skye said, closing the door behind her. The chains didn’t rattle. They rarely did. ”Sometimes I think that maybe Coulson would know what to do. But that hasn’t been true for a very long time. And the fact of the matter is – you are my responsibility now.” </p>
<p>His silence had sent chills through her spine when they first started this. Now it didn’t make her feel anything. He was a part of her now and there was no getting around it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Basement

**Author's Note:**

> Since my muse has been MIA, it's unclear whether this will be continued or not. I choose to have faith hope is not lost for these characters so we'll see how it goes.

“Are you going to tell Coulson? Or should I?”

Skye should be sweating more. She knew that. She had a gun pointed at Melinda May and if it had been in any other circumstance, she knew that she would already be dead. May wouldn’t have let her get this far if she were anyone else.

“You and I both know that I don’t need this gun,” Skye said quietly. “So why don’t we both put ours down?” 

May’s eyes were unreadable, not that it was surprising or anything. Her hand gripped the gun imperceptibly. 

“I don’t want any trouble,” Skye said, starting to lower her gun.

“You have it, Skye,” May said. “I can’t forget what’s in there. You know that. It's a weapon.” 

“So am I," Skye said. She hated how icy May's eyes were. A line had been drawn between her and the other agents a long time ago. She just hadn't realized it until recently. "I’m hoping you won’t jump to conclusions.”

“There is no other conclusion,” she said. “You know this isn’t right.” 

“What isn’t right?” Skye asked. “The cargo or what I'm doing with it?” 

“You know the answer to that.”

It was her worst fears confirmed. She had known that SHIELD had been deteriorating for some time. Now that she could hear it from the source, she could finally admit that it didn't sit well with her.

"You cross off Gifteds off the Index every day." 

"High risk targets," May said. Skye wasn't about to point out they had almost done that to her.

"So long as it serves SHIELD's purpose," Skye said. "But this doesn't. The only problem is what is inside that room. If it were any other thing on the Index SHIELD would have sanctioned this.” 

“You’re blinded by emotion," May said. 

“Maybe,” Skye said. “The funny thing is I’m not as emotionally compromised as you. Is that the definition of irony?” 

“You’re stalling.”

“Yes,” Skye said. “For you. You can still walk out of here.” Skye let her gun drop to the ground.

May never moved. She should have expected as much.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“You won’t,” May said. Usually, she would be right. It had been a long time since the team could function with those roles. Too much had changed.

“I hope you’re right.” Skye’s tremor hit the air and landed squarely in May’s chest.

Skye had another dream that night. He was ragged in it, no need for imagination there. It gave her a perverse pleasure when she jolted awake. But even when she went back to the basement, she still couldn’t make up her mind. Skye punched in the code and the chamber decompressed, letting her inside. She stood there for a moment, thinking of what to say next. 

“I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with you,” Skye said, closing the door behind her. The chains didn’t rattle. They rarely did anymore. ”Sometimes I think that maybe Coulson would know what to do. But that hasn’t been true for a very long time. And the fact of the matter is – you are my responsibility now.” 

His silence had sent chills through her spine when they first started this. Now it didn’t make her feel anything. He was a part of her now and there was no getting around it. HIs bristly beard was a reminder of how long he had been down there. 

“I’ve answered all your questions,” Ward said. Every day his voice was a little bit quieter. Sometimes she would wonder if he would die in there. That wasn’t what she wanted but it didn’t exactly make her sorry either. Not yet. “You know everything I know.”

“But that's still not everything,” Skye said. 

“You think I don’t want the answers you do?” he asked. There was almost a spark of old humor but it fizzled out easily.

He unfurled his fingers from his clenched palm. Skye took a step backwards even though she knew his chains wouldn’t let him hurt her. Sparks flared in his palm for a moment. His dark eyes looked at them curiously as they floated away, the only way his powers could manifest in the room.

“You think I don’t want to know what they did to me? What they made me into?” He finally looked up at her. “I'm as in the dark about that as you."

She used to think that he had been lying about what Hydra had done to him to keep him alive longer. But she could see that this was no life he wanted to be living.

"You know you can’t hide me forever,” he said. He wasn’t wrong. May found out and even after Skye messed with her memory, there was no guarantee someone else wouldn’t figure it out. Maybe next time someone worse. They both knew it had been a long time since she had been an agent of SHIELD. SHIELD wasn't even SHIELD anymore. But the so-called Agent Quake was using tactics and crossing lines she never would have before. The more she resisted her change, the more she ended up like her husband.

“Once I decide what to do with you,” Skye said, “you’ll be the first to know.” 

“So just kill me.” He wasn’t baiting her. She knew that much. When she looked into his eyes, she couldn’t help but feel like he thought that was the only way this could go.

“This may come as a shock—“ She thought she saw a glimmer of a smirk. “—but I don’t relish the thought of taking someone’s life.” 

“Neither do I.” 

“You really expect me to believe that?” Skye asked. “Or are you just choosing to forget the past year?” 

“I never wanted to hurt you, Skye.” Her name on his tongue made her insides rattle. But if one object in that room shook, he would know that she was letting him get to her. That she couldn’t do. 

“I seem to remember this incident where you shot flames at my head.”

“And are you forgetting that you tried to bring our house down on me first?” Ward asked.

“Look who’s so concerned with the truth now,” Skye said. “My husband of five years turns out to be a bounty hunter with pyrokinetic powers tasked with infiltrating my life to get information on me but now you have a problem with hypocrisy.” 

His eyes were hard. They had been ever since their last encounter when she set a quake that crushed everything inside of it. SHIELD thought that included the Hydra agent known as Hellfire. She couldn’t remember when the lies she told started to become more a part of her than the truth. Now all she could bear to do was keep it all wrapped up. 

“As much as it kills you,” Ward said, “you just can’t give me over to Coulson.”

“Our entire life was a lie.”

“I’m not making excuses,” he said. “But Coulson is more of a hypocrite than I could ever claim to be. You just can’t predict what he’ll do next. That's why you scrambled May's brain. She hates me so much that she can't see keeping me alive is a benefit. But you can."

"I did. In the beginning," Skye said. "I'm starting to think that you've outlived your usefulness."

His smile was tired. They both knew she wouldn't kill him. She didn't have it in her.

"I don’t know SHIELD’s plans but I know they scare you now," Ward said. "More than I do. So what now?”

It was easy to detach herself. Her husband had been Grant Ward. Grant Ward didn’t exist. He died in that cave in. The man she was looking at now was Hellfire. She went for the door, her fingers brushing against the metal.

"Skye."

She should have walked out.

"Did your annulment ever go through?"

When she looked back at him, his arrogance was diluted. He didn't have the energy anymore. But there was still a shadow of the man she once knew.

"It did." She didn't know why she was telling him. Maybe she just wanted to see him react. Maybe May was right. Maybe she was just too emotionally compromised to let him go just yet.

"Then can I ask?"

She really didn't want him to. But that probably wouldn't have stopped him anyway.

"Why are you keeping my name?"

"It was never your name," Skye said. "I was married to the lie you told. Not you."

She slammed the door behind her.


	2. The 44th Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So in the end, the only solution is to let me go. Right?”
> 
> Skye couldn’t answer. She couldn’t even open her mouth.
> 
> “You know it is,” Ward said. “Because if you kill me, if you could even become me to kill me, that would never be the end. We’d be linked forever.”
> 
> “You’d be dead.” 
> 
> “Even if you got away with it,” Ward said, “you’d have to live with it. Live with me. I’d be in you, under your skin. And then where would you be? I’d never leave you alone.”

The sparks conjured from his palm melted away like snow.

“I’ll freeze to death down here. You know that.” There was no accusation in his tone. No sadness. No confidence. It was just nothing. This was what he had been resorted to.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to suggest taking off the chains,” Skye said from the door of his cell. “That would be insane, even for you.” 

“Just insane enough it just might work?” He wasn’t grinning. “A blanket would be nice.”

“You’ll have to give me more first,” Skye answered.

“You seem to be operating under the false impression that I was a high ranking official in a plan to dominate the world.”

“No?” 

“It wasn’t like that,” Ward said. “I followed a man and that man followed Hydra. I’ve told you everything I know.” 

“How convenient.”

“As evil as you think I am,” Ward said, “that doesn’t mean I was trusted. Hydra operates under a very sophisticated and organized regime. Everything is need to know only.”

“You had to have known more than John Garrett,” Skye said. “More than Whitehall. More than the little empty shell you call a soul.” 

Ward smiled wanly. “Doesn’t mean it’s true.” He leaned back, suppressing a shudder. He was chaffing against his chains. She knew it wasn’t helping. 

“Just give me something, Ward.” That was as close to pleading him as she would ever get. 

“Bakshi.” 

“We have him.”

“You had him,” Ward said. “But not everything. Not even close.”

“So you do know more.”

“I know a lot of things,” Ward said. “Just not what you’re looking for.”

“Oh yeah?”

“What month is it?”

“November,” Skye said without thinking. She had hoped it had to do with the location of a Hydra cell.

“I thought it might be,” Ward said. “Happy anniversary.”

Skye should have seen that one coming.

“Of course, it’s impossible for me to tell what day it is since I have no understanding of night and day,” Ward sighed. “But have some pie for me.”

“Do you want a blanket or not?” Skye asked, her teeth close to cracking from the strain.

“Wouldn’t turn it down.”

“Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

Ward gripped the warm fibers to his body. “So you do care about me.” 

“Don’t delude yourself—“ 

“Is that what you tell yourself?” The spark that he seemed to have lost seemed replace from the warmth she had offered. Before he was close to teasing, the only thing he could do to survive. Or so she thought. His voice took a turn. “You stop me an inch from freezing and I’m what, grateful? You and SHIELD are as bad as Hydra. Maybe even worse.”

“That’s more than debatable.” 

“At least Hydra doesn’t operate under a deluded superiority complex,” Ward said. “I told you the truth. We had a deal. When are you going to let me go?”

“When Hydra topples, you and I will never see each other again,” Skye said. “That’s a promise.”

“So then what happens?”

Skye always felt like she was suffocating in the room. His presence sucked every breath that she had and as soon as she entered she wanted to leave.

“We had a deal.” 

“See, I did the math,” Ward said. “I’m pretty good at that.” 

“I noticed."

“And what really are the odds that you’ll turn me into SHIELD?” Ward asked. “I was born and bred a specialist. No matter how you cut it. And I know the system. They’ll never let you off. Coulson will try and pull for you because he cares. That man really tries to act like he cares. But it’ll never be the same. Every time he looks at you it will be just like how you’re looking at me right now.”

His chains clanked together as he moved.

“You wouldn’t be able to handle the guilt,” Ward said. “Some people are made for it and some aren’t.”

“Like you.”

“Like me,” he answered. “So in the end, the only solution is to let me go. Right?”

Skye couldn’t answer. She couldn’t even open her mouth.

“You know it is,” Ward said. “Because if you kill me - if you could even become me to kill me - that would never be the end. We’d be linked forever.”

“You’d be dead.” 

“Even if you got away with it,” Ward said, “you’d have to live with it. Live with me. I’d be in you, under your skin. And then where would you be? I’d never leave you alone.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Skye said.

“No,” Ward answered. “The second you let me live, the second you brought me down here, I knew you really never had any intention of letting me go. I was taught how to do the math. And after everything that’s happened, of course I knew. How could you think I wouldn’t?” 

“You know me so well.”

“I know this business,” Ward said. “And there’s only a couple of ways agents turn out. And I don’t have a lot of options.”

“That’s kind of the idea,” Skye said.

Ward lurched to his feet. Skye took a step before she was able to stop herself. She would never be afraid of him. She just didn’t think he had that much strength to get off his mattress anymore. 

“I’m going to at least have a choice of how I die,” Ward said. “I’m not saying I deserve it. I’m saying as a person, I’d at least like you to look me in the eyes when you do it. Just do me that favor, Skye.”

* * *

 

The dreams were the worst.

_“Finish it.”_ That was when Skye had made the decision. From the time she had learned her husband had been a secret agent of Hydra and the moment her finger pulled the trigger, she had been debating. But May had been hovering over her as Grant Ward lay bleeding on the floor, three bullets to the abdomen and she just decided.  _“Skye, you can’t keep him alive. He deserves to die.”_

He did. All of the lies and the bloodshed, no one would shed a tear if Grant Ward expired right here.  Least of all her. She might even get a medal for it.

“ _I’ll finish it_ ,” she promised.

Instead she piled her bleeding husband into her car and called Dr. Jemma Simmons. " _You are an agent of SHIELD_.”

The judgment was clear in her voice but Jemma still pulled the bullets out as Ward screamed.

“ _No one would care if he died_.” Jemma was starting to branch out on her own too. The memory of the innocent girl who did science for science's worth was long gone. Hydra had turned them all into something else.

“ _I need answers.”_

_“So why not just turn him in?”_

_“They won’t do what needs to be done.”_  

Jemma never said a word. She transferred to administration after Leo Fitz’s accident.

And Ward was still in the little basement cell, not saying a word. Helping when he could but being mainly glib.

_“What about the guests at our wedding? Also Hydra agents?”_

_“Why propose at all?”_

_“What about that apartment outside of Belfast? Was that your handler across the street?”_

Except once on day #44. He finally responded to her incessant questions. In his own way. 

“ _You know,”_ he said, “ _not once did you ever ask if I really loved you.”_

“ _Because I know the answer,”_ Skye said. It had been that simple. There was no point in reliving their marriage and questioning every single detail. She knew the truth and she didn’t need a play by play. 

“ _No, Skye_ ,” Ward said. “ _You don’t._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> My inspiration for this fandom has completely disappeared. So I'm ignoring canon and just doing my own thing. This is heavily influenced by The Blacklist. No infringement intended.


End file.
